Leaving on a jet plane...

I am leaving today for London England for a two week trip. Part of it is a school trip to see the bookbinding sites in England. My husband is coming too so we will be doing the tourist things during our free time. I will take lots of pictures and post them when I return.

New Knives

From left to right: Insertion Tool, Peachey Lifting Knife, English Lifting Knife, French Knife and in back is my Spokeshave.

I recently took a two day workshop with Jeff Peachey, a bookbinder and tool maker. At this workshop I made three new knives, finished my french knife and fine tuned my spokeshave. Jeff is a wonderful teacher, I have had many problems in the past with sharpening my knives and he made it very easy. He brought many tools with him, from power tools to help with shaping the knife blanks, to finished knives to take ideas from. Below are the finished blades:

From left to right: Insertion Tool, Peachey Lifting Knife, English Lifting Knife, and French Knife.

This is my spokeshave after the adjustments that we made at the workshop. We used epoxy and a piece of paper to flatten the bed of the handle. This lets the blade rest flat and closer to the bed which prevents "chatter." We also flattened the underside of the piece that holds the blade in place to help keep the blade still and flat.
If you ever get a chance to take a workshop with Jeff Peachey, take it! You can visit his online catalog also to see what he makes and sells.

Single Flexible Binding

This is a binding I recently finished. I am very pleased with the way it came out. The cover is calf that I dyed and then blind tooled. This book is blank on the inside but I am in the process of doing a similar binding on a bookbinding dictionary. Tooling the cover is very stressful but so rewarding when you are finished. I think the things that surprises people the most is that the "bumps" on the spine are part of the sewing structure. Most of the time when you see this type of spine on a new book the "bumps" are fake but in this binding they are cords that were sewn over. Sewing over the cords is what gives this binding it's name. You can also have a Double Flexible that is sewn over two cords at each sewing station.

Bookbinding is cool!

You have to watch this video from If'n Books.

Lost Week

Well, I haven't gotten a single thing done this week. It is another "Lost Week" for me. I have Fibromyalgia and some weeks are harder than others. This week I haven't been able to get to sleep and then in the mornings I have not been able to wake up. So I have made a list of all the things that I have to finish to graduate and I have nine projects and nine weeks to compleate them. If I can stay healthy than I think I will be okay.
I am most excited to compleate my Fine Binding of the Edward Curtis book that I am working on. Each person in my class has a copy and we are each doing something different. The book will be bound in full leather and I am working on the design that I will tool on the leather. I will post a picture when I a finished.

Some of my work...

This is a box that I made to hold a classmate's book. They were both given to the architect that designed our new classrooms at the North Bennet Street School.
It is hard to see but in the lower right hand corner there is a leaf.

Welcome to the 21st Century

Well, I have finally joined the 21st Century and started a blog. I decided to create this because I am opening a new business selling my handmade books. I have a website on Etsy, www.blueskybindery.etsy.com, where I have sold three already! I am looking forward to graduation on June 1st but it is also pretty scary. My husband will be returning to school in the fall to get his bachelor's degree and then he wants to go to Law School so I will be the only income for at least the next four years. Can I make a living selling my books? I don't know but stay tuned to find out.